Long-term care medical facility settings include assisted living facilities, skilled nursing facilities, group homes, etc. Assisted living and skilled nursing facilities typically have medical staff that are responsible at all times for and oversee the administration of medication to the patients/residents of the facility, as prescribed by the physician or otherwise needed. Group homes may or-may not have live-in or around-the-clock staff that are responsible for all medication administration to the residents; such staff may be available only on a periodic basis (e.g., only during the day time, one or more times per week, etc.) in which case the residents may be responsible for their own medication the majority of the time. Such long-term care facilities are increasingly being asked to handle more and more of the medication storage responsibility that once rested almost totally with the community pharmacy. Long-term care pharmacy providers are typically not located within the actual patient facility; in fact, it is not uncommon for the pharmacy to be several hundred miles away. With new patient admissions occurring at unpredictable times throughout the day and existing patients' medical regimens changing without notice, it is imperative for those facilities without a physical pharmacy on site or access to one in a timely manner, to have non-patient specific medications on site for facility administration to the patients. Historically, facilities have stored medications in various types of non-mechanized containers and tracked drug product additions and removals with manual logs. Mechanized systems have primarily been limited to storage cabinets with a variety of drawers that house specific medications in predetermined locations. The drawer systems typically have secure access features which limit access to authorized users, typically facility staff that have the appropriate credentials, passcode, security pass, etc. to enable unlocking of a drawer to allow access to that user; however, once a user opens a drawer, there are only limited safeguards to prevent the wrong quantity or wrong drug from being removed, as this is a manual selection and removal process by the system user.
In view of the foregoing, it may be desirable to provide improved systems for dispensing medications for patients in long-term care facilities and other medical environments.